Indian Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani)

We took the opportunity to spring clean the house and organize our closets because Spring always seems to give us that burst of new energy. It makes us feel optimistic towards our outlook on life and that we get another opportunity to start over fresh.

It reminded me about Holi, a religious spring festival celebrated by Hindus – I had been seeing and hearing a lot about it lately on the media. I have to admit, I didn’t really know anything about this holiday except from what I saw on the media lately, but I really liked that one of things it celebrated was the beginning of Spring and the many colors that represent Spring.

Although Indian Butter Chicken is not really a Spring dish, it represents one of the elements of Spring – it represents a new beginning for me because it is a dish that I have been meaning to try to make from scratch for a very long time.

Every time I pass by the premade Indian sauces in the grocery store, I would always be tempted to buy one jar to satisfy my craving but each time I stopped myself and vowed that I would try to make it myself from scratch one day.

My biggest fear of trying to make an authentic Indian dish was the large amount of spices and ingredients – most of these spices I had never owned – and the length of time involved in making the dish taste authentic was frightening to me.

Sure, I’ve seen recipes that involve much less time and less ingredients but I decided that if I wanted to make this dish taste as authentic as possible, I wanted to try making it the traditional way at least once.

Although there are many wonderful recipes for this dish out there, I believe I found an excellent Indian Butter Chicken recipe from ecurry, and let me tell you, this recipe is definitely worth a try to make it at least once in your life time.

The aromas that fill your house will make your knees weak and just one taste will make you think you were dining at an authentic Indian restaurant.

Serve the chicken with Naan and/or rice.

Thank goodness for Spring and all the new energy it brings – otherwise, I may have never tried tackling this dish. I am so happy that I did and now that I bought these spices, there are other dishes that I would love to try next

Happy Spring Monday everyone!

Indian Butter Chicken (Murgh Makahni) Recipe

Ingredients

2 lbs chicken breast, washed, patted dry and cut into small pieces

First marinade:

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon red chili powder

salt to taste

Second marinade:

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon garam masala

1.5 tablespoon fresh ginger, (made into a paste)

1/2 tablespoon fresh garlic, (made into a paste)

For the sauce

4 tablespoons melted butter

2.5 inch fresh ginger, made into a paste

8-10 cloves of garlic, made into a paste

4 green cardamoms

3 cloves

2 cinnamon sticks

1 black cardamom

2-4 fresh green chili peppers, slit

1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

3-3.5 cups tomato puree

10 almonds, soaked, peeled and made into a paste

2 teaspoons dried fenugreek leaves, crushed

1 teaspoon garam masala

1/2 tablespoon sugar

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoon heavy cream

1 tablespoon red chili powder/cayenne pepper/paprika or to taste

salt to taste

2.5 cups of water (start with 1.5 cups first and then slowly add more to desired consistency)

Instructions:

Marinate the chicken first with red chili powder, lemon juice and salt and set aside for 20 minutes.

Combine yogurt, turmeric, red chili powder, salt, ginger paste, garlic paste, lemon juice, garam masala powder. Apply this second marinade to the chicken and refrigerate for three to four hours, overnight works better.

After chicken has had time to marinate, preheat oven to 400°F. Place the chicken on a baking sheet and cook in preheated oven for about 10 minutes while turning them over mid way. Cook until done.

Heat butter in a thick bottomed pan. Add green cardamoms, black cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. Sauté for a couple of minutes or till they start to sizzle and get fragrant; add the fenugrek seeds.

When the fenugreek seeds sizzle, add ginger paste and garlic paste, and the slit green chili peppers. Cook for five to eight minutes until the water from the ginger/garlic paste has reduced.

Add tomato puree, red chili powder and salt.

Cook at medium heat for about 15 – 20 minutes. The puree will reduce to a thick paste and the oil will separate from the sides of the pan.

Add 1.5 cups of hot water to the pan and slowly add more to desired consistency.

Add almond paste and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for another 15 minutes.

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